Will AF last forever?

[brewer]

You need to stop talking about me in front of my back.

Well...you are extremely precious.  

Phew............ I thought I was the only one that knew.

[Fireball]

AF will die with the heat death of the earth when the sun is red-gianty enough to boil the water off. Well, actually, before that. I was popping off about the "safe" thread and said things that I regret, but didn't leave over it. I kind of felt like I should, though, and I hope that Tiberius understands that I was just shooting my mouth off and was just wrong. 

[Shell B]

To be fair, some of the folks who left started a metric fuck ton of threads. Just one of them leaving probably cut traffic in half. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it would be nice to see more new threads, even if I'm not particularly into half a page of threads like, "Let's Talk About Me," "Do You Hate Me?," "Guess My Current Mental Illness/Excuse" and my favorite, "It's Everyone Else's Fault But Mine." I do enjoy substantive threads about people's personal lives, but I'm not into the blogging clogging the forum.

Maybe atheism not being such a closeted thing will contribute to these types of forums declining anyway. People don't really need to sneak off to the Internet. They can be openly atheist these days.

[arewethereyet]

To be fair, some of the folks who left started a metric fuck ton of threads. Just one of them leaving probably cut traffic in half. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it would be nice to see more new threads, even if I'm not particularly into half a page of threads like, "Let's Talk About Me," "Do You Hate Me?," "Guess My Current Mental Illness/Excuse" and my favorite, "It's Everyone Else's Fault But Mine." I do enjoy substantive threads about people's personal lives, but I'm not into the blogging clogging the forum.

Maybe atheism not being such a closeted thing will contribute to these types of forums declining anyway. People don't really need to sneak off to the Internet. They can be openly atheist these days.

A big part of the reason for shuttering TTA was the slowdown in traffic over the last couple years.  It had become a small group of people who posted regularly with very few new people who weren't trolls or drive-bys.

We had a couple people starting multiple threads daily...often just variations of the same inane things.  High post/thread counts for the purpose of high post/thread counts and little, if anything, of substance.

Not unlike feeling the need to post to nearly every thread even if just being a jackass.  Makes your post count high but doesn't add anything.

And, as Losty said early, there is an ebb and flow.

[AFTT47]

To be fair, some of the folks who left started a metric fuck ton of threads. Just one of them leaving probably cut traffic in half. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it would be nice to see more new threads, even if I'm not particularly into half a page of threads like, "Let's Talk About Me," "Do You Hate Me?," "Guess My Current Mental Illness/Excuse" and my favorite, "It's Everyone Else's Fault But Mine." I do enjoy substantive threads about people's personal lives, but I'm not into the blogging clogging the forum.

Yet the ownership caved into the most juvenal member's demands that they be allowed to post trash and click-bait. The ownership caved into the least common denominator. Is it really a surprise that many members went out seeking more adult conversation?

[Silver]

Like the Great Red Spot, it seems like message posts are declining.

Yeah, the forum's dying. No surprise. We told them, we did.

[Aoi Magi]

I don't see how a forum dedicated to atheism can keep getting new on-topic threads for a long time. I mean theism, on which atheism depends, hasn't come up with anything new for a couple thousand years at the least, and all of it's "arguments" have been discussed to death already...

[onlinebiker]

As with any form of communication media - the use of online forums started - got popular, then declined.

Will they go away completely?


Considering there's still some goofy ham radio fucks playing with Morse code - I think the forums will still exist for some time.

[ignoramus]

Morse code? Preppers must prep...

It will be needed for the zombie apocalypse. Everyone knows brain dead zombies don't understand morse code.
(meanwhile iggy has no fucking idea about communicating in morse code)

I prefer digital smoke signals myself! I know, I'm going all hipster.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I don't see how a forum dedicated to atheism can keep getting new on-topic threads for a long time. I mean theism, on which atheism depends, hasn't come up with anything new for a couple thousand years at the least, and all of it's "arguments" have been discussed to death already...

Which is why we have topics on guns, abortion, films, books, daily life, evolution, aliens, climate, ecology, television, dead celebrities, jokes, and so on, forever and aye.

The forum will be around (I think), but I agree with you that, as tempus keeps fugiting along, it'll be less and less about atheism.

Boru